Page 93 of The Maid's Secret

“A fairy-tale ending,” I say.

“Just that.”

Juan gets up from the sofa to start dinner, and in an hour or so, we’re eating a delicious stew that tastes so much like Gran’s that when I close my eyes, I imagine she’s sitting at the table with us. After weclean up, Juan and I watch a David Attenborough documentary about apex predators. Despite the high drama, Juan keeps nodding off, his head landing on my shoulder.

“I’m going to bed,” he announces when a shark attack startles him awake. “Are you coming?”

“I think I’ll read for a while,” I say.

“Okay,mi amor.” He kisses my forehead, then stands. “Don’t stay up too late. We have work tomorrow.”

“I’ll be in bed soon,” I say.

He shuffles off to our bedroom, and I finish the documentary. When it ends, I turn off the TV and sit quietly on the sofa, my mind churning. I look over at Gran’s curio cabinet, where her diary sits on top. I take a deep breath, then grab it. I settle on the sofa, pulling Gran’s lone-star quilt around me. I turn the key in the lock and begin reading.

Dear Molly,

I read one entry, then the next, then the next. Once I start, I can’t stop. The pages turn, and her life, her history, unfurls before my eyes. It’s as though I’m seeing her clearly for the very first time, this woman who was my everything and yet a mystery in many ways. All of the pieces fall into place—every choice she made, every decision, all the wisdom she imparted to me, lessons learned from her own mistakes.

To err once is human. To err twice is idiotic.

By 2:00a.m., I’ve learned all about her parents and about the manor where she grew up. With each new entry, Gran comes more alive, more fully fleshed in the afterlife than she was when we sat on this sofa together, watchingColumbo.And behind her I see another ghost taking shape, the outline of the formidable woman who helpedGran become who she was—not her birth mother but my great-aunt, Mrs.Mead.

We had more in common than I ever realized—Gran and me. We both had mothers who failed us. Mrs.Mead stepped in to care for Gran, and Gran stepped in to care for me. There’s a generosity to both decisions that moves me to my core. I have to stop reading because I can’t see through my tears.

I go to the kitchen, where I make tea in Gran’s favorite cup—the one with the cottage scene on it, a modest stone dwelling with a thatched roof and gardens all around. Oh my goodness. It wasn’t just a teacup to her—it was a memory of hearth and home, of Mrs.Mead standing by the stove while Gran did homework at her kitchen table.

With Gran’s warm cup in hand, I nestle under her quilt in the living room, and I pick up reading where I left off.

Mr.Preston—John. My gran-dad. He was always there in the background of her life, and yet she didn’t always see him clearly. Oh, this man, the love of her life and her greatest loss. Frogs and princes, maids and butlers, barons and tycoons.

The pages turn and turn, the hours pass, but I cannot stop reading. I hear the birds stirring outside, dawn creeps up the sky, but I’m riveted to the page—Gran speaking to me from the great beyond.

Be careful what you wish for.

All that glitters isn’t gold.

Love is the only gift that lasts.

I turn the last page, and I can’t stop the tears that flow from my eyes. Never have I felt as close to Gran as I do in this moment. I clutch the diary to my chest, and I saythank youover and over and over.

This is how Juan finds me at 5:00a.m., hugging an old leather-bound diary and talking to it as if it were alive.

“Molly, are you okay?” he asks.

“Never better,” I reply as I wipe my eyes.

He appears unconvinced. “Did you stay up all night?”

“I did,” I reply.

“You read her diary?”

“Every last word,” I say. “I know everything now.”

“Everything?” he asks.

“About me, about her, about who we really are and where we came from. It’s all there between the lines,” I say. “And I know who took it.”